djenne djenno

I am Sophie, a Swedish woman by birth but English by adoption. I have a little mud hotel in the beautiful and ancient West African town of Djenne, Mali. WWW.HOTELDJENNEDJENNO.COM Because of unstable political
situation, tourism has ground to a halt. Hotel still open! But hotel staff mainly working in Bogolan studio now: www.malimali.org check out our fab online shop!

Tuesday, February 28, 2017

The Korean Alan Lomax

Well things continue at a hair-raising speed here: since last time I have
made a lightning visit to Bamako where I met the documentary team. The journey
back to Djenné yesterday was made in the comfort of their air conditioned 4X4, in
sharp contrast to the journey down which was made on the Djenné bus with all
its associated hardships. This time however, it was a comfort to travel with a
great Korean couple who had stayed one night at the hotel.
The man turned out
to be something of a Korean national treasure according to his wife Kyunga. He was
called Mr. Sangil Choi and just like the legendary American scholar Alan Lomax who
travelled and recorded American folk music in the forties and fifties building up a sound
archive now housed at the Library of Congress, Mr Choi had spent his life
recording Korean folk music. He and his wife were now travelling in Africa, always
using public transport and looking for music, slowly winding their way up to
Morocco through Mauritania. I reflected how many such extraordinary people I have been fortunate to meet during the time of the hotel.

Tuesday, February 21, 2017

A Cavalcade

Well, instead of the present being a time of solitary reflection during the
sad wrapping-up of my Djenné life, these months are proving to be so jam-packed
withimportant events that I have had
not a second to spare... One major event is rapidly followed by the next, all
deserving of proper entries in this journal! So I will just sketch out briefly
here all the things that have happened and are happening:

The manuscript library has had a visit in January from two intrepid
specialists who do not worry in the slightest about travel warnings: Michaelle
Biddle from the Wesleyan University in New England came to talk to Saadou about
watermarks and to teach the library staff how to separate pages that have
become glued together. She was accompanied by Maria Luisa, our Italian
conservator.

Then came my old friends, a rather glamorous trio of adventurers I call the
three Musqueteers: Nicholas Mellor,(centre of the toubabs) visionary and entrepreneurwith the cutestaccent
anglaisand Anthony Sattin, (right)
distinguished writer from England with le
charmant Axel Charles-Messance, the French drone pilot
and film maker I call TinTin. They were
here on a mission to teach local people to fly drones over the World Heritage
Sites in order to preserve cultural heritage in endangered areas of political
unrest. Theirs is a pilot project only at this stage, but with the potential to
be used as a model for other areas around the world. Alas we didn’t get very
far- that is to say, the Prefect (highest authority in Djenné) said NON. A
proper high level authorisation was needed to fly drones in the current climate
of heightened security. However, they managed to teach three local people and
make a small film: The rest will hopefully follow in March when they return
armed with the proper authorizations.

And what happened next? We moved swiftly on to the visit from Keita’s family
from Bamako and Segou for the ceremony to Keita’s memory; a Fatia or a reading of the Koran with all the Grand Marabouts de
Djenné, organized on our land by the library staff: Yelpha and Garba etc.
Everyone who had known Keita was invited and it was a solemn and moving
occasion: our old friend Dr.Guida Landouré came all the way by local bus from
Bamako just to be present. Keita's sister Djenneba to the right below; and centre front Keita's good friend Bamoye who has featured in this journal in the past: see 'Bamoye's Guitar' in the blogsearch above.

With all these peoplein Djenné from
Keita’s family we decided to have a party at night, and Maman took advantage of
the party in order to celebrate his wedding to Oumou. They have been married
for years and have a little daughter called Sophie already, but this was, in keeping
with Malian traditions, the second part
of the wedding, the part in La Mairie.

Keita’s best friends were invited to this dinner and we had the Balafon
orchestra from Souala village who had not been here for years: a fun evening
with much dancing from Maman of course, and Papa, as usual when he had finished
in the kitchen. Almost like old times... Hans, my Swedish Dutch friend who
comes every year happened to be passing through with his Lettish friend Maris, thus adding to the festive atmosphere.
And as if this was not enough, there was also Dr. Faira and the Cataract
operation team, who joined the evenings dinner and fun.

The following day, at the Djenné hospital, came the inauguration ceremony
for our fifth free cataract campaign for a hundred people given by MaliMali and
sponsored this year entirely through my cousin Pelle Kronqvist and Nanni his
wife. This year the operations were given in memory of Keita, his family was
present at the inaugurations ceremony and a minute’s silence was observed. ( Keita's first wife Mai third from right, and his daughter Nene with me below)

And then came Timbuktu... I had been invited to represent the Djenné
Manuscript library at a conference held by UNESCO on the pillage of World
Heritage archaeological sites and the illicit trafficking of cultural objects –
including the danger to manuscripts etc. So I went off happily in a UN plane for
five days in Timbuktu where after the conference we were regaled by the
crepissage of the 14th century Djingareber Mosque- a very different affair
from that of Djenné’s mosque, but with its own quite particular charm.

I was also invited to dinner by the wife of Saadou Traoré (our new
manuscript expert in Djenné) at his old house in the back streets of Timbuktu
behind the Djingareber one night. Madame Traoré sent her nephew with a little
motor bike to pick me up at nightfall at the Auberge du Desert where I was
staying. Only a motorbike is able to get through the small sandy alley ways of
Timbuktu: the following morning I received a telling off by UNESCO and UN personnel
who were absolutely horrified that I had been riding around Timbuktu on the
back of a local’s motorcycle, and had returned back way after the kerfew... I was
not aware that there was a kerfew even!

Returned happily to Djenné yesterday and having a few days to recover from
all this excitement before leaving for Bamako on the bus on Saturday morning. I
am meeting a Swedish Documentary film crew who are going to spend ten days with
me: making a film about me and my life! Oh dear. I am going to have to be fascinating
for ten days in a row...

Saturday, February 11, 2017

How it works..

Well, I didn’t need to have been so coy because Saadou ( right above) and Ousman were not
in the slightest bit embarrassed to talk about these things but took it quite
in their stride. I found out that the aim of the maraboutage concerning sexual potency is to make a man able to
perform frequently.
It is a question of quantity: if a man has four wives he is
supposed to give them all equal sexual attention, as well as treating them
equally in every other way. And
according to Ousman and Saadou there is no excuse even later in life: if a man
takes a new young wife, that doesn’t mean that he is allowed to drop his
attentions for the older one, on the contrary she is not likely to be forgiving
in that respect- this is all according to Ousman and Saadou who only have one
wife each. One can perhaps understand why- it all sounds a bit hectic...

Thursday, February 09, 2017

Library stuff

Not writing much these days, I know. But I feel something
stirring now so I might start again... it is something that is extremely
interesting or could be quite boring really depending on one’s disposition that
particular day... I have taken on the task of translating the Excel sheet that
accompanies the images for the British Library project in the library. We lost
Mohammed who used to do our English explanation of the contents of all our
manuscripts; He got a better offer down in Bamako and that meant that he could
be near his family, so understandably he left us. So now I have said I will get
involved for the last nine months of the project. It is already proving quite
challenging.. I am translating the information that Saadou and Ousman are
giving in Arabic and French. A thousand questions arises about a thousand things which
throws light on both the similarities and the differences of our cultures. .
Let me give a few examples: a typical entry, giving the description of the
contents of an ‘esoteric’ manuscript:

“Instructions on how to become rich, treat certain illnesses such as
sterility, head ache andcough. How to
protect oneself against witchcraft, weapons, bites of scorpions and snakes; become
married,be intelligent,be loved, attract the admiration of people,
be sexually potent and successful in
commercial transactions by the usage of verses from the Qu'ran.Finally the virtues and merits of the
chapters of the Qu'ran are given for the resolution of various problems.”

This is a manuscript for a Marabout,
doing “maraboutage”, the age old speciality
of Djenné, for which the town is famous throughout West Africa. This is
presenting some of the universal desires of humanity: we are all looking for
material comfort, admiration, protection against bad times; we all want to be
loved and successful. It is not quite clear to me what the
manuscript means by being ‘sexually potent’ here. A lot of the esoteric
manuscripts deal with this.Does it mean
being able to sire a lot of children? Or does it mean sexual performance during
intercourse? In the West it may mean a man’s ability to please the woman as well as himself. Is that the same here? Do
they care if a woman has sexual pleasure? Do I have the nerve to ask Yelfa
about it? Yes, sure I do. Will be back with the result.
And more importantly perhaps, these ‘esoteric’ manuscripts, describing the maraboutage of Djenné, are exactly what
would exacerbate any Jihadists if they were to attack Djenné. Their puritan
Salafist faith does not countenance any such practices: they see it as witch craft, tied to the earlier animist beliefs.